The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.

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Title: Trade Preferences for Developing Countries and the World Trade Organization (WTO)

CRS report number: RS22183

Author(s): Jeanne J. Grimmett, American Law Division

Date: October 21, 2008

Abstract

World Trade Organization (WTO) Members must grant immediate and unconditional most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment to the products of other Members regarding tariffs and other trade-related measures. Programs such as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), under which developed countries grant preferential tariff rates to developing country goods, are facially inconsistent with this obligation because they accord goods of some countries more favorable tariff treatment than that accorded to goods of other WTO Members. Because such programs have been viewed as tradeexpanding, however, parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provided a legal basis for one-way tariff preferences in a 1979 decision known as the Enabling Clause. In 2004, the WTO Appellate Body ruled that the Clause allows developed countries to offer different treatment to developing countries in a GSP program, but only if identical treatment is available to all similarly situated beneficiaries. Where WTO Members' preference programs have provided expanded benefits, Members have generally obtained WTO waivers. P.L. 109-432 authorized the GSP program through December 31, 2008, extended a third-country fabric provision in the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and expanded textile benefits for Haiti. P.L. 110- 191 extended the Andean preference program, available to Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, to December 31, 2008. Textile benefits for Haiti and Caribbean countries are also addressed in the 2008 farm bill, P.L. 110-246. P.L. 110-436, signed October 16, 2008, extends the GSP and Andean programs to December 31, 2009, with restrictions on Andean benefits for Bolivia and Ecuador.